We visited Fort Henry in Kingston Ontario. While overlooking the ramparts a group of older visitors came out, bringing sandwiches from the snack shop. They sat close to us and discussed who wanted which sandwich - tuna, egg salad etc. I cannot imitate them in writing but they sounded exactly like a Monty Python skit (especially the one where nine out of ten people cannot tell the difference between Whizzo butter and a dead crab). DH and I had to get up and leave so we would not laugh and possibly offend them, but it was a moment we'll remember.

A minor bit. When I was in college and for several years afterwards I worked the scoreboard at our basketball arena. The summer after graduating, I took a trip to Walt Disney World. While at EPCOT, in the World Showcase I went into the British pub -- and ran into the arena announcer and his wife who were also on vacation. "Of all the gin joints..."

While traveling in Wales, I was visiting a ruined castle (possibly Beaumaris, but I don't recall.) Since it was typically drizzly, I was wearing my rain coat and hat. The coat is a long, stockman's 'duster' in black and the hat looks a lot like a fedora. As I came around a corner out of a somewhat dark section I ran into some teenaged girls. They took one look at me, screamed "Darkman!!!" and ran away.

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Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bow lines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

Sitting in a van in Antananarivo, Madagascar, waiting for the guide to run an errand. Watching a guy on the sidewalk sewing feathers onto the wings of a live rooster. It was to make him more fearsome-looking for a cockfight.

Deep into the jungles of Ecuador, in an Indian village after an all-day canoe ride to get there. Hanging on a line was a towel with the name of the California hospital where I was born.

In Malaysian Borneo, spending the night in an Iban longhouse with a basket of human skulls hanging from the rafters.

Also in Malaysia (and this was many years ago) there was a crackdown on certain vehicle safety laws. There might be 4 or 5 people clinging to that motor scooter, but by George!, every one of them was wearing a helmet.

Strolling through a small city in Croatia a few years ago, we saw two Roman centurions walking down the street. We thought this was a little weird, so we started following them through the twisty, medieval streets. We lost them around a corner, congratulated ourselves on our awesome adventure, and stopped for some wine.

When we emerged from the wine bar and headed back to the city's Roman forum, though, there was a large crowd watching an entire procession of centurions (at least 50 of them), escorting some concubines and what had to be the Emperor into the square. Then the Emperor started addressing the crowd--unfortunately, in Croatian, which we didn't even remotely understand.

We had absolutely no idea what was going on. Obviously, it was a play of some kind (or, I guess, we'd time-travelled somehow, along with the rest of the population of the city), but no one could explain it to us. If anyone here knows why there would be centurions and an emperor roaming around Zadar on a summer night, I'd love to hear.

That reminds me. I was on a Youth Symphony trip to Italy. We were outside the Ufizzi in Florence and saw a few random guys wearing Renaissance-style clothes. Complete with big floofy hats with big floofy feathers. I got pictures of them, but never could figure out what they were doing.

Also, in Venice on the same trip, I saw what was likely to be the only car. Cars aren't allowed in Venice, but apparently someone had won one, it was on a barge parked outside a block of housing. It was definitely strange.

Husband went to college with friends, Amber, Betty and Zoe. All of us live in the East Coast.Husband works with John (who is married to Gerty). John and Gerty live in Amsterdam.

Amber, Betty and Zoe travel to Easter Island for vacation. Where they meet John and Gerty who are also vacationing at and near Easter Island. They all start talking on the boat and discover they all know Husband. Amber also discovers she went to high school with John's younger brother. It is a small world at times.

In our middle school the 8th grade always took a weekend camping trip to Mackinaw Island right before 8th grade "graduation." Our ferry ride off the island was delayed waiting for the ambulance to bring a girl from another tour group who had been hit by a bike. When they brought her on board, we sort of whispered amongst ourselves that we couldn't believe there was no adult with her. Our chaperon found out that the EMS people couldn't find any of the chaperones with her group, and since she was hurt quite badly they didn't delay in transporting her. Only two of her friends were with her. We never found out what became of her.

Fast forward 4.5 years. I decided to go to a HUGE university almost 1000 miles away from home. I didn't know a soul. I sucked up my courage and joined the ballroom dancing club on campus. On the long walk home to my dorm, I started chatting with a guy who lived on the same floor as me. Turned out he grew up about 100 miles from where I did. In the course of getting to know each other, we discovered that we had competed against each other in academic competitions, had been good friends with the same girl (She moved out of my town and into his), and he had been on that same Mackinaw Island ferry! He was one of the two friends who had accompanied the injured girl. Turns out she ended up with a severe concussion, a broken arm and collar bone, and lost 2 teeth.

One that amused me was the cinema I went to in Germany. I was on my own in Frankfurt and felt like a diversion so I went to see a film. Much to my intense amusement two men in wedding dresses walked in and sat down several rows in front of me. When I say men in wedding dresses I don't mean to imply they were trying to look like women as both had moustaches and one had a goatee beard and they seemed to be making no attempt to pass as women, they were just wearing dresses.

I didn't work out what the purpose of the interesting attire was but it made the film more amusing. I kept thinking of the tv series "Little Britain" and the sketches with Florence and Emily.

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And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.

Back in 1964 my parents and I and my dad's maternal cousin, his wife, and their youngest daughter took a car trip to New Mexico to visit family and do some sight-seeing. On the trip home, we were traveling a lonely FM road somewhere in eastern New Mexico or west Texas. Miles between towns and passing cars were few and far between. Dad's cousin was driving at this particular time (he and my dad shared driving duties on the trip), and we happened upon what appeared to be an accident with someone lying in the road and other people standing around, trying to wave us down. Something about it just didn't look/seem right, so Cousin just sped on past. As we got past them, the person lying in the road had gotten up and the group was milling around like they were trying to figure out how to get us to stop. Cousin floored it then and we got away from there.

We all felt that those people were up to no good and things would have been very, very bad for us if we'd stopped and tried to render aid.

No matter where DH or I go, we will run into someone who is from the same town, or knows someone else who is. This might not seem like much, if we were from large metropolitan areas. No, I grew up in a small beach community in CT and he is from a suburban smallish town in northeastern Mass.

Of course, my sister moved 3000 miles away and her best friend that she met out there lived and worked in the same small beach community that my parents moved too...long after she had married and moved out!

I was going through the US/Canada border near Buffalo, and because of some paperwork had to go in to immigration. Fortunately, not terribly busy, but just as I was about to go up, one of the agents brought six men up and let them go in front of me. I was .

They looked like ordinary working men, but as I watched them, I thought a couple of them were starting to look familiar. When I got out, a quick check of the iPhone showed that yes, Blue Rodeo was playing Buffalo tonight.

The thing was, I wasn't sure until I checked their tour schedule, so I was afraid if I waved and yelled "I have your Greatest Hits on my phone!" It wouldn't be them, and I'd look like an idiot.

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My cousin's memoir of love and loneliness while raising a child with multiple disabilities will be out on Amazon soon! Know the Night, by Maria Mutch, has been called "full of hope, light, and companionship for surviving the small hours of the night."